Cypress publishing company shares love of Texas history

Lone Star State's heritage propels family business

MICHAEL BAXTER, Chronicle Correspondent

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, July 15, 2004

Any child attending a Texas elementary school in the past 35 years has probably read their stories.

Tales of real life and fictional Texas heroes and events since the early days of the Texas republic remain the bread-and-butter of Cypress-based textbook publisher, Hendrick-Long Publishing Co., 10635 Tower Oaks, Suite D.

The family owned business got its start with Texas history books presented in a storybook fashion.

Originally published in 1950, Johnny Texas is a story of a pioneer German family and young Johnny as he explores the wonders of a new land far from home.

"We actually hold the copyright for Johnny Texas," Michael said.

"It's amazing when parents see that book today and say ... 'I remember that when I was in school.' "

Though Vilma and Michael publish three or four new titles each year, the volume of manuscripts they receive can be overwhelming.

"We have tons of manuscripts," Vilma said. "We get around 50 manuscripts every month from teachers, retirees and freelance writers who are interested in writing about Texas. I remember that we even had a little girl send in a really nice story and you could tell that she was serious about becoming a published author."

"A lot of what we receive is like, 'The Story of My Grandmother,' " Michael said. "I may like the story, but I have to be rational about it ... how many people will that book appeal to?"

On the other hand, author Martha Tannery Jones, writer of Terror from the Gulf, the story of the 1900 Galveston hurricane as told through the eyes of 12-year-old Charlie Byrd, is being given the opportunity to try something a bit different.

"Martha has written five or six fictional stories for me, but now she wants to present something in nonfiction, so I'm going to give it a try," Michael said.

Vilma, a veteran of the publishing industry, joined her husband with the goal of taking Hendrick-Long to the next level.

"I came from the trade side of publishing," she said, "and because of that, saw that we needed to become more diverse if we were going to continue growing and succeed."

That diversification involved becoming the distributor for more than 500 book titles published by other companies across the country.

"Where 100 percent of our sales were to school districts just three years ago, today it's dropped to 60 percent, mainly because of the loss of funding for new books in schools," Vilma said.

"By distributing books for other publishers throughout Texas we've been able to make up that 40 percent loss in sales of our own titles."

A regular pay check is secondary for Michael and Vilma when it comes to owning their own business.

As a small company with only five employees there may be times when they are in the warehouse loading pallets with cases of books, but it's all for his family, Michael said.

"I do the job for them," he said about wife Vilma, and their daughters Taylor and Ingrid.

"We make our own decisions about what we do and when we do it."

"It's important to me that we are carrying on the family name and the work that my in-laws put into this company," Vilma said.